Topic: USS Liberty 40th anniversary
AdventureBegins's photo
Wed 06/06/07 04:13 PM
Excerpts from the War Crimes document filed by the United States against
Israel persuant to the incident involving the USS Liberty

"After identifying the ship on Janes’ (The Fleet’s manual – Exhibit 1)
and based on detailed investigation by the pilot – the identification of
the ship was determined to be the US Navy ship "Liberty" (formerly
supply ship) of an 18 knot speed."

From the files of the IDF (Israelie Defense Force)

Prior to the attack.

IDF History Report, Exhibit 2-8:
"He [Pinchasi] reported the information to Naval Operations Section/3
and since the reference was to an intelligence ship he likewise reported
to Naval Operations Section/4 (intelligence).

Further
IDF History Report, Exhibit 2-8:
"Lt. Commander Pinchasi checked the marking in a "Janes" manual and
learned that the reference was to an intelligence ship named "Liberty."


Flash message from US Fleet ships in area.
27] Exhibit 14:

081250Z JUN 67
FM COMSIXTHFLT
TO USS SARATOGA
USS AMERICA
INFO CTF SIX ZERO
CTG SIX ZERO PT TWO

BT

C O N F I D E N T I A L

1. AMERICA LAUNCH FOUR ARMED A4’S TO PROCEED TO 31-23N 33-25E TO
DEFEND USS LIBERTY WHO IS NOW UNDER ATTACK BY GUN BOATS. PROVIDE
FIGHTER COVER AND TANKERS. RELIEVE ON STATION. SARATOGA LAUNCH
FOUR ARMED A-1’S ASAP SAME MISSION.

GP-4

BT

Message from 6th Fleet Commander to those vessels that had launched
counter strikes.

[31] Exhibit 17

081440Z JUN 67
FM COMSIXTHFLT
TO AMERICA/SARATOGA /CTF60/CTG60.2

CONFIDENTIAL

1. RECALL ALL STRIKES REPEAT RECALL ALL STRIKES

xootbx's photo
Thu 06/07/07 03:41 AM
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/943818/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/943117/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/942571/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/998942/posts

So far the orignial commision assigned to investigate the incident, if I
recall a second commission was created in the late eighties and came to
the same conclusion, and as the articles above show, in 2003 the release
of NSA recordings indicate, that Oceans clearly denies exist as they
were not monitoring Israeli transmissions, shows the same. They made a
mistake, far from intentional. Please someone provide evidence of
intent.

As tragic as the story the survivors is, it is not proof of prior
knowledge that the USS Liberty was known to the Israelis and in now way
proves that they attacked with said knowledge. It is simple speculation
on their part as it is on the part of those that propogate their
opinions as fact with nothing to back it up.

AdventureBegins's photo
Thu 06/07/07 05:26 AM
The things I reference the exibits of Isralie transcripts clearly show
that Israel new that ship was the Liberty prior to launching the attack.

And yet the commission disregarded those exibits in their final
decision.

Why?

There are many other exibits all pointing to the same thing. The
Isralie's also new the regestry number on the hull and that exibit was
also ignored in the final decision.

Oceans5555's photo
Thu 06/07/07 02:06 PM
In the US there was considerable pressure on the Johnson administration
and indiviudal Congress people to brush the attack under the rug.

But it is impossible to suppress this kind of incident: too many people
knew what had happened, both in Israel and the US. It was decided that
Israel would be let off the hook if they simply paid money to the
families of the sailors who perished. That was, officially, viewed as
enough of an admission of guilt. Lots of people, especially those in the
military and those who read the transcripts from the US listening posts
in the area, disagreed and there is still a lot of bitterness about it
today.

In the meantime, Israel papered the walls with assertions that it was an
accident, and a lot of people, unfortunately, got taken in by that,
especially if their primary goal to begin with was to support Israel.

The story, though, is attracting more and more attention, lo these 40
years.

Oceans

AdventureBegins's photo
Thu 06/07/07 02:37 PM
xootbs I do not quite understand your point.

I gave you excerpts from the ACTUAL US investigation into the incident.
Somehow they looked at all the exibits (I can call more up from that if
you wish) including ones that showed without doubt that the Israelies
knew exactally what ship they were attacking. That according to
eyewitness and participants in this action Israelie torpoedo boats
actually fired on lifeboats and unarmed people. This is backed up buy
exibits that are included in the original filing of the claim of War
Crime.

Yet all this information, even though included in the fact finding
portion of the claim was ignored in the final ruling.

Why?

And why would you send me to a pro Israelie chat forum as if it is an
actual factual web source.

Read the actual filing of the claim by the US Government. Then decide
who is lieing based on the exibits included in that filing.

no photo
Thu 06/07/07 02:45 PM
Charles Tiffany, Richard Block and Ron Gotcher are among several
Air Force intelligence analysts who have come forward to
report
that they saw real-time transcripts of communications from the
attacking forces which show clearly that they were aware they
were attacking an American ship. Others who saw these
transcripts include Dwight Porter and Oliver Kirby, mentioned
above, and several top offiicials of the American intelligece
community.


There are vast lists of people out there that know it was not an
accident.
The Israelis are quite good in creating situations like that.

xootbx's photo
Thu 06/07/07 03:40 PM
Adventure,
The links to FreeRepublic serve simply a quick link to information that
exists, that most of the cts ignore, that the US recordings of the
incident show the Israelis were shocked when they found out it was a US
ship.

As for your evidence, again it does not show that at the time of the
attack the pilots nor Israeli commanders on duty and incharge of the
operation knew that the boat they were attacking was the US Liberty.

I have read the actually filing and it is purely speculation with no
actual evidence, just inference. As are most of the posts in most of the
forums, just like this mainly anti-Israeli forum on JSH.

If you are going to cite stuff, you should at least provide places to
find the information you are using.

I am still waiting for someone to provide actual documentation that
shows the Israelis intentionally attacked the USS Liberty, knowing it
was the liberty.

The closed mindedness here is apparent.

AdventureBegins's photo
Thu 06/07/07 04:40 PM

"I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. . . .
Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I
didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The
attack was outrageous "
-- US Secretary of State Dean Rusk



"...the board of inquiry (concluded) that the Israelis knew
exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty."
-- CIA Director Richard Helms



"I can tell you for an absolute certainty (from intercepted
communications) that the Israelis knew they were attacking an American
ship."
-- NSA Deputy Director Oliver Kirby



"That the Liberty could have been mistaken for the Egyptian
supply ship El Quseir is unbelievable"
-- Special Assistant to the President Clark Clifford, in his
report to President Lyndon Johnson



"The highest officials of the [Johnson] administration,
including the President, believed it 'inconceivable' that Israel's
'skilled' defense forces could have committed such a gross error."
-- Lyndon Johnson's biographer Robert Dallek in Flawed Giant,
Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 430-31)



"A nice whitewash for a group of ignorant, stupid and inept
[expletive deleted]."
-- Handwritten note of August 26, 1967, by NSA Deputy Director
Louis W. Tordella reacting to the Israeli court decision exonerating
Israelis of blame for the Liberty attack.



"Never before in the history of the United States Navy has a
Navy Board of Inquiry ignored the testimony of American military
eyewitnesses and taken, on faith, the word of their attackers.
-- Captain Richard F. Kiepfer, Medical Corps, US Navy
(retired), USS Liberty Survivor



"The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with
certainty that this attack...was a deliberate effort to sink an American
ship and murder its entire crew.... It was our shared belief. . .that
the attack. . .could not possibly have been an accident.... I am certain
that the Israeli pilots [and] their superiors. . .were well aware that
the ship was American."
-- Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, US Navy (retired), senior legal
counsel to the US Navy Court of Inquiry



That the attack was deliberate "just wasn't a disputed issue"
within the National Security Agency
-- Former NSA Director retired Army Lieutenant General William
Odom on 3 March 2003 in an interview for Naval Institute Proceedings



Former NSA/CIA Director Admiral Bobby Inman "flatly rejected"
the Cristol/Israeli claims that the attack was an accident
-- 5 March 2003 interview for Naval Institute Proceedings



Of four former NSA/CIA seniors with inside knowledge, none was
aware of any agency official who dissented from the position that the
attack was deliberate
-- David Walsh, writing in Naval Institute Proceedings



"It appears to me that it was not a pure case of mistaken
identity."
-- Captain William L. McGonagle, Commanding Officer, USS
Liberty, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery, June 8, 1997



"To suggest that they [the IDF] couldn't identify the ship is
... ridiculous. ... Anybody who could not identify the Liberty could not
tell the difference between the White House and the Washington
Monument."
-- Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and later
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, quoted in The Washington Post, June 15,
1991, p. 14


The information I posted earlier was excerpts from the actual filing of
the War Crime Report. I suppose that each of these people above are
'anti-semetic'? I think not.

It was quite a shock to me to find that actual evidence was completely
ignored by the released findings of the board of inquiry. When you send
me to (and I will say it again) a CHAT forum and then say my excerpts
from the actual War Crime Report are not important I wonder about closed
minds just as you have.

xootbx's photo
Thu 06/07/07 06:09 PM
Adventure,
As I said before, the links I sent were easy access to stories posted on
the release of NSA recordings.

As for you quote, nice, but nothing more than speculation/opinion.

As for hwt was sumbitted in the case, it is not proof, it is alleged
evidence at this point, of which proves nothing. Has any judgement been
made that proves authenticy of the information, does it prove the
Israelis knew the USS Liberty was in fact the Liberty when it attacked.
The simple answer is NO, it is speculation.

If any of it was actual proof, then it would have already been acted
upon.

As I stated before, please provide links to support what you claim is
actual evidence, I am not saying it is not, but please support your
argument.

And FreeRepublic is hardly a Pro-Israeli forum. And to discount the
validity of a forum, you ultimately discount the validity of your posts
on this forum. Open mindedness has nothing to do with the source of the
posts, as you have clearly shown you do. It has to do with accepting
information based on logical reasoning, which to assume speculation as
fact is far from.

I would also like to say it is nice of you to take exerts out of context
and post them as individual items. Try taking the whole exert from the
trial and post that, of course with links to your sources of
information.

AdventureBegins's photo
Thu 06/07/07 06:48 PM
Why should I.

Any one with a web browser can look up the same thing.

Plug in War Crimes USS Liberty. It will bring up a list that includes
the War Crimes Report I referenced. Also the Exibits I quoted are not
disputed they are actual testimony of the Isralie officers involved in
the process. There is also actual testimony of the crew of the Liberty.
All of this information was passed over in the final decision of the
panel. In passing over this information many questions have been
raised.

I found no links on that chat forum. I found opinions posted by a man
named Yonie. I found a lot of racialially derogotary statements. I
found many statements to the effect that anyone who did not accept the
Official Isralie version of the event was 'Anti-sementic', 'Obviously a
Nazi', or had 'ties to orginized crime'. This is known as propaganda.

I wonder if the government of Israel knows how close they came to being
radioactive waste.

My father was a SIGINT/INTEL Non-Com at this time.

karmafury's photo
Thu 06/07/07 07:12 PM
I had never heard of this before. So I read the thread and then did some
looking. I found that the only sites stating it was an 'accident' were
the Jewish Virtual Libray and the Anti-Defamation League. However there
are credible soures for the side of an intentional attack.

Point of view of survivors: http://www.ussliberty.org/

Testimony of Israeli pilot: http://www.rense.com/general39/pilot.htm


Always willing to learn more. So long as information is credible and non
biased. I realize that the view of survivors is biased however the
Israeli pilot confirms an intentional attack.

no photo
Thu 06/07/07 08:00 PM
This has plenty of information about the USS Liberty and the lies this
government hid under the rug.

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=uss+liberty&sa=Search&domains=rense.com&sitesearch=rense.com

karmafury's photo
Thu 06/07/07 08:13 PM
BearandWhisky, I noted that every single site connected with what you
gave all comes from the same basic address 'rense.com' which alone would
lead me to believe bias. Add to that the term Zionist which I've learned
usually tends to point towards an anti Israeli sentiment. Sorry, as much
as I would like to learn more, be the attack intentional or not, I did
say from non biased sources.

karmafury's photo
Thu 06/07/07 08:17 PM
Also noted some 9/11 conspiracy material from same. Sorry again but I
want accurate information not conspiracy theories.

no photo
Thu 06/07/07 08:19 PM
yes www.rense.com is on the governments number 1 propaganda sites.

To me, that means they are very close to the truth, if not right on.

Oceans5555's photo
Thu 06/07/07 08:20 PM
Well, xootbx, just who do you think the Israelis thought they were
attacking? Or are you arguing that it was SO accidental that the
Israelis just thought they were strafing the empty ocean for hours, and
-- oooops! there was a ship there?

no photo
Thu 06/07/07 08:26 PM
Its very clear to anyone who wants to keep their eyes open that the
Israelies attacked us and our government lied and wanted it sunk to the
bottom of the sea.

Oceans5555's photo
Thu 06/07/07 08:53 PM
Karmafury, there is nothing pejorative about the term Zionist.

It refers to the notion that Jews at the end of the 19th and 20th
century should create a Jewish State.

The main organization that carried this out is the World Zionist
Organization. It is a term that Theodor Herzl, the father of the
Zionist movement, used to describe his vision of the Der Juden State --
the Jewish State and the title of his seminal book on the subject.

To suggest that Zionism is a pejorative term is really to insult the
whole Zionist movement, beginning with Herzl down to the present. I
know that you do not mean to do so, but among people engaged in the
Zionist cause and debate it would be viewed as an insult.

happy

Oceans

xootbx's photo
Fri 06/08/07 03:19 AM
Adventure, nice contradictions. As for being able to do a search,
obviously I can, however if you are going to cite information, you
should provide the source(s) you used.
Again, just because it was submitted, does not make it true. That is the
part you are missing. Additionally as you selectivly took parts out of
context, they can be made to appears as one thing when they are not.

As for the FreeRepublic, they are news articles from Haarezt and Jpost,
I know, you probably find them quite biased, however all news outlets
are biased, and the source off most of the information regarding the USS
Liberty, comes from a biased source as well. As for the responses, I
found for anti-Israeli responses in those forums on those particular
articles.

As I have said their is has been no concrete evidence of intent to
attack a known US military ship ever been presented. There is
speculation and that is all.

Unless you can post concrete evidence of intent to attack a US military
vessel, then there is no need to post anything else.

Oceans, if you read listened to/read about the US recordings they
support the Israeli recordings that show they thought they were
attacking the Egyptian freighter.

I know, many "experts" claim it is impossible to have mistaken the two,
however it is just that a claim.

People forget that humans make errors, especially at a mile+ distance.
It does not mean there was or is a plot. Again unless you have concrete
evidence to the contrary, I will go along with what is know, based on
the evidence that is available.

Oceans5555's photo
Fri 06/08/07 04:42 AM
Dream on, xoobx. We now by your own admission know where you go for your
opinions. Your time with me is up.